Jobs

271,000

U.S. employers added a seasonally adjusted 271,000 jobs in October, well above economists’ expectations for a gain of 183,000 and the healthiest number so far this year. Nonfarm payrolls for the prior two months were revised up by a combined 12,000–employers added 153,000 jobs in August and 137,000 in September. So far this year, job gains have averaged 206,000 per month, compared with 260,000 in 2014. The latest stretch of job gains at 61 consecutive months marks a record for any expansion.

Unemployment rate

5%

The unemployment rate fell to 5% in October as more people found jobs. The headline number has fallen sharply from a 10% peak during the recession and is now at the lowest level since April 2008. A broader measure–which includes people who aren’t working or looking for work, and people who want a full-time job but can only find a part-time position–dropped to 9.8%, the lowest since May 2008 but still above levels typical during this phase of an expansion.

Participation rate

62.4%

One reason the unemployment rate has fallen over the past few years: Americans are dropping out of the workforce. But that wasn’t the case in October. The labor-force participation rate held steady at 62.4% last month as more people joined the labor force and found jobs. Still, participation remains at levels last seen in the 1970s. The low level is in part because baby boomers are retiring but also because discouraged workers have given up on their job searches. The trend started to emerge in the early 2000s but accelerated during the recession.

Wages

$25.20

At $25.20, average hourly earnings for private-sector workers were up 2.5% in October from a year earlier. That’s nicely above the 2% average throughout the latest economic expansion, though still below levels seen before the recession. With a tightening labor market, many economists are looking for signs of stronger pay gains, though those have been slow to materialize. It’s not clear if October’s figures were another blip or the start of a trend.

Commodity Collapse

-109,000

Cheap oil is ravaging the U.S. mining industry, a sector that includes oil and gas. Employment in mining shrank by 5,000 in October and has shed 109,000 jobs since peaking in December 2014.

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